Friday, March 5, 2010

What to do with a few minutes spare?

There are few games that I like to play with students when we have a few minutes spare, you need at least a projector (and laptop) and even better a mimio or IWB.

Free RiceFree Rice is my first favourite. For every question you get right 10 grains of rice gets donated through the World Food Programme.

The reason it is my favourite is that if you click on Change Subjects you can choose from other subjects.

I particularly like to do the Geography questions as most children in New Zealand schools have very little idea of where other countries are in the World.

Lemons for Literacy

Then there is Lemons for Literacy. With this site every correct answer helps somebody to read in America. Money is donated by the site creators to purchase literacy materials.

With this site you can click on the speaker symbol to hear the words and meanings.

You can also change the type of game by clicking on the 'Defintion Matching' dropdown menu to choose Word meaning. You can also choose a subject rather than General (some of the choices are Business, Medical, School, travel or hospitality). You can also adjust the level of the words.

The goal of this game is to test your knowledge of places on the map. Every correct answer means that freepoverty.com will donate 10 cups of water. The further away from the correct spot and the cups of water decrease, if you are too far away there is 0 cups of water awarded. Unfortunately it does have advertisements on it so check what they are advertising that day before using with your class.

The reason I like using the mimio or IWB is that students can use the pens to interact with words and the maps rather than one person using the computer.

And here is one more I have just found

Free Flour

Free flour used to donate one spoonful of flour to World Hunger, but they are looking for sponsers. You can still play the game for free.

In this game you get questioned General Knowledge questions. Check out what the advertisements are advertising before using with children.